Guitar, Electronics, Composition. Based in NYC

"Solos presents a dark world of innovative sounds, an avant-garde/noise/classical-folk-jazz-like hybrid. Strange yet accessible music that seems just a beginning of an exploration of unlimited possibilities." Dan McClenaghan for All About Jazz

"This is not just sonic novelty or gratuitous use of extended techniques; each of the pieces while largely improvised, have clarity and purpose that creates really interesting and memorable pieces of music...“Solos” is a wonderful record that introduces us to an interesting new voice in the world of experimental guitar. Liberatore’s music is very imaginative. “Solos” explores textures driven by propulsive rhythms, stark counterpoint of contrasting colors, and lyrical noise, sometimes all in the same piece. Highly Recommended!" Chris DeChiara for Avant Music News

“Liberatore’s unorthodox and experimental techniques also lend a striking physicality to his work […] Liberatore’s playing sways gracefully between moments of discord and unsettling beauty […] Innovative and uncanny, his technique doesn’t act as an end in itself but, rather, as a means for him to express uncertainty and disquiet to haunting effect.” Annie Murnighan for The New York City Jazz Record

"For where the electric and acoustic guitar is today in New Music-Improv worlds, you can give yourself a real leg up on things by listening to the music of Matteo Liberatore, in a recent album simply entitled Solos ...Beyond and aside from the rather ingenious ways the guitar is rethought with the various extended techniques of which Matteo makes very creative use, the music fascinates on its own. Bravo!" Grego Applegate Edwards for Classical Modern Music

“Listening to this album, I feel like my fingers are running along a raw edge of sheet metal. My body tightens up and my heart beats a little faster. Liberatore and the imagery he has created has physical affect […] Liberatore’s “Agnes” is deeply emotive. He guides us to a place of beautiful sorrow and reflection” Jeanne Landers for Jazz Right Now

"What Giorgio De Chirico is to modern art, Matteo Liberatore is to modern avant-garde." Susan Frances, Seattlepi

Solos reveals that the electronics of his previous work were just the icing on the cake of his musicality. Michael Ross for Guitar Moderne

““Barrea” re-establishes the project's experimental tone in presenting bowed creakings that suggest the wails of anguished ghouls; even more stripped down is “Alberto,” whose strum-accented scrapes and rustlings call to mind ghost towns collapsing into ruins, and “Fisherman,” whose bowed expressions sound like whistlings across a grave or two.” Textura

"The music of this album is delicate and fragile" "[...] surely original and fascinating." - Maurizio Comandini for ALL ABOUT JAZZ ITALIA (review of Concepts)

"I was blown away by his take on creating abstract music in a similar way to early Stian westerhus; that is, conjuring up highly electronic sounds without using a laptop or iPad, solely through the imaginative employment of effects pedals" - Michael Ross for Guitar Moderne

Matteo Liberatore is a boundary-pushing guitarist and composer from Italy, living in Brooklyn, NY. His style explores the crossroads of free improvisation, contemporary classical music and noise using guitar, extended techniques and electronics.

The mountainous and medieval region of Abruzzo, where Matteo grew up, inspired an overarching darkness in his sound as much as being the son of an Architect fostered his deep appreciation of textured expression and modern art movements.

Matteo is an active member of the New York improv scene. He had the honor to perform with Ralph Alessi, Tony Malaby, Elliott Sharp, Ingrid Laubrock, Jon Irabagon, Andrea Parkins, Joe Morris, Weasel Walter, Brandon Lopez, Michael Foster and many more.

Matteo studied classical guitar under Maestro Marco Salcito at Conservatorio di Foggia and philosophy at University of L'Aquila. As part of a duo releasing records and performing in Italy, he won competitions such as Concorso Nazionale di musica “B.Barattelli” in Popoli (PE), (2005), Concorso Nazionale di Musica Capitanata in Apricena (FG) (2005), and Teramo International Chamber Music Competition (2005).

At NYU Matteo obtained a MM in Jazz Performance while studying under Jean-Michael Pilc, Wayne Krantz and Peter Bernstein. His first album, Concepts, was warmly reviewed by All About Jazz in the same year that he formed the avant-noise-jazz-rock quartet Ashen Figure, who toured in the US and Europe from 2010-2012. Ashen Figure's original sound attracted the attention of former Sonic Youth producer Nick Sansano, who produced Matteo's latest group project Una Lux. The Una Lux EP, relesed in late 2014, received excellent reviews from the likes of NPR, WNYC, Entertainment Weekly, and Magnum Magazine.